


Colour

by theamazingfrog



Series: Haldonia.tv [5]
Category: Haldonia
Genre: Death, Death by Void, Nightmares, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original Fiction, POV First Person, Red - Freeform, Soul Fusion, Surgery, Trauma, Violence, Void Monsters, banished gods, inner conflict, memory theft, name theft, soul reconstruction, space, technically people?, void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 19:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19818583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theamazingfrog/pseuds/theamazingfrog
Summary: in which someone wakes up





	Colour

I open my eyes. 

The fluorescent lights above me make me squint, but that’s the least of my problems. My entire body feels like it’s been ripped apart into individual molecules and hot-glued back together. Even the smallest movement accentuates the pain like it’s coloured in neon, bright and burning hot. My vision shakes, blurry with tears. I can’t scream, and it’s not just because of the cloth stuffed in my mouth. The world before us is in shades of grey and grey alone.

“ look. ”

I think I hear something, but I ignore it. Aural hallucinations haven’t done any good for me up until now and I refuse to acknowledge them now.

...Wait, no they haven’t? I’ve never heard things that aren’t there before in my life?

Yes, I have.

No, I haven’t.

No, I have, because remember that’s how I got here in the first place! Remember, I was walking in the forest and I heard someone calling my name, “Loreli!”, like my mum’s voice. But my name’s not Loreli, it’s Aiden. What? No, what am I thinking? I’m Loreli. Lo-re-li. Remember? Jesus, fuck this hurts. 

I don’t think pain should be doing this to me. I’m not called Loreli, I’ve never met anyone called Loreli, I didn’t get here by listening to my dead mother calling me. Mum’s not dead though, why am I thinking that? She’s at home with Cecil. Fuck, she’s probably worried. What? No, mama died ages ago. Remember, I went to her grave and put those nice pink flowers on? No? I didn’t do that, I remember I talked to her, like, half an hour ago. 

“ Look at yourself. ” 

What the fuck’s happening? I feel myself begin to shake. I don’t know what’s happening. Suddenly it’s like I have twice the usual amount of memories and none of them are made-up. Is somebody in my head? No, is somebody in  _ my _ head?

My face stings suddenly and I see a blur of movement out the corner of my eye. Someone grabs my face and jolts it to face them.

“Listen to me when I speak to you.”

All arguments in my head dim to an electrical buzz. I shut down. Well, whichever half of me that’s desperately afraid of physical contact does, anyway.

“That’s better.” 

I’m looking at what looks like a person made of the void. They look like they’re an angel, full of soft pale colour, light reds and yellows and pinks with cyan shadows against their nose. Everything about them makes the back of my neck feel like ice. Half of my instinct says run, run, get out of there, get away from them, while the other half says stay, listen to them, they’re dangerous and will hurt you. Both halves seem to be in agreement that the person gripping my head could easily crush it and is bad news.

“Did you hear what I said?” I can’t answer. “No, of course not. I knew you’d be useless. Let me guess, you were arguing with each other over whose head it is?”

static. something about what they just said made everything burn ten times worse. the buzz in my ears turns into sharp crackles. it hurts.

“Well, whoever was winning is wrong. It’s neither of your heads. It’s your new shared head. Welcome to the world, Aideli.”

.

..;

.’13#’}{no;;.:

  
  
  


“Look down.”

we look down. 

hovering above our body is what can be loosely defined as a soul. a more fitting word is a monstrosity. what it actually is is two souls, messily sewn together with scraps of void and space. that explains the burning.

the souls are two different colours, one dark red and one pale blue. they’ve been molded into two blobs so that they can be put together and look somewhat like one whole soul. the nightmare-coloured person flits around the workbench, prodding and poking at it, taking things out and so it’s not too large for the gaping cavity in our chest where ONE soul should reside.

“My name is Cecilia, by the way. You can call me mother if you like, although I’d much prefer you didn’t. I’m more like a… creator. There we go! Call me either Cecilia or your Creator.”

we don’t react. cecilia plucks a memory out from the middle of our now-combined soul and both halves react by screaming in pain.

“Well, at least your voice works! It sounds like just one voice, as well, rather than two discordant voices, which is what I was afraid of. I don’t want to have to put you under again!”

she took our names. she took my name and my name and now we’re just aideli. we’re one. we absolutely hate it.

“So, Aideli, I’m really sorry about all the pain. It’ll be over soon! I just need to take out two or three more chunks and then we’ll be all done and I can stitch you up!” another memory, gone. that one felt like something to do with our childhood. “I’ll be honest, you actually weren’t meant to wake up so soon, but I think it’s really for the best; this way you get to see what’s happening, at least! And I know your pain receptors are working!”

she pries out one last clump of memory and anything personal we remember is gone. how did we get here? where is here? we remember things like city names but anything about us is gone. our mother could be dead after all, but we wouldn’t know. that memory is sitting in the dish in cecilia’s hand.

“All done, Aideli! I’ll leave you to recover, shall I turn off the light?” noyesnoyesnoyesnoyes

“Nes” Cecilia pauses for a moment.

“I’ll just turn the big light off and leave the little one on my desk on, shall I?”

we’re left in darkness. our head still buzzes. we know that we had different names but we’ve forgotten them. it’s all wrong, why did she do this to us, why why why why why wh

***************************************************

We don’t know how much time passes before the pain stops. One day it just turns off and we can think coherently again. Our “soul” is back in our body again, at least. We still haven’t seen ourself but we’re afraid to, if we’re honest. All of the colours in the world are gone, replaced with monochrome and shades of grey; apparently, colour doesn’t exist in the Void. It kind of sucks, but it’s by far not the worst thing about our situation. (it is it is i hate it where are all the colours)

Cecilia’s told us a fair amount about herself, and ourself. Apparently she made us to be her friend (although we’d really rather never see her ever again) because she was a goddess cast down from the other gods and goddesses (good, she deserves it). She was exiled to the void and only recently discovered the human Soul. She took a liking to both halves of us and decided she wanted both of us, but only as one being. So she decided that she’d just… borrow our souls and make a new one. Our families “should have forgotten you exist, so don’t worry about them being scared for you! There’s no pain on either of your halves because neither of you remember each other!”. A wonderful example of her faulty logic in action. (faulty logic is an understatement.)

As it turns out, there’s a lot of pain on both of our halves. Physical and emotional. We don’t get along very well. We also detest the name Aideli. (it’s ugly like some sort of wine name) (shut up) Unfortunately, neither of us know our names. One of us prefers the first half of our name, though, and the other prefers the second half. Aid and Eli. (no, it was much nicer than Eli. it was like some sort of pretty flower name. I hate this. I want my name back.) (so do I, you aren’t special.) (at least I’m not some sort of fucking holier-than-thou asshat with a name like Aid) (my name isn’t Aid, that’s just a part of it.) (sure thing Aid) (catty bitch) (stupid dick) (we have more important things to do.)

Anyway. We’ve decided that, until we find a better name, we’ll just stay as Aid and Eli. We’re on the same team until we get out of here. Team Aideli. (that’s fucking stupid) (what’s your suggestion then,  _ your highness _ ?) (fuck off don’t be a dick)

(team aideli it is.)

***********************************************   
After an unknown period of time, something happens. The room we’re in, chained to the table, disappears. Our entire field of vision is coated red. The black and white monochrome of the room is flooded with this new colour. We panic in two different ways; one half breaks down immediately, trying its best to scream and cry. The other half maintains its composure, searching desperately for an explanation. Both halves come to the conclusion that we’re dying. Neither half can deal with this fact and a sob works its way past our lips.

For the first time since our creation, we sit upright. This confirms our belief that we’ve died; heavy steel restraints have pinned us to the table for as long as we can remember, and they aren’t easily moved. There is no whirr of laboratory equipment, no tick-tock of the metronome on Cecilia’s desk, no static buzz of the surrounding Void. For the first time in our short life, we’re in total silence. 

Standing on shaky legs, we shift ourself off the bench. Every joint clicks from lack of use, like we’re temporarily made of clockwork. The fog lifts, just a little. Shades of red surround us, the entire room bathed in a deep, bloody red. Hesitantly, a step is taken and we move forward. We have no idea where we’re going next, but we make a beeline for the door. It opens easily; bizarre, since she always locks it behind her. We aren’t complaining, though. 

It seems like hours pass as we make our way up the hallway before us, trembling. Red, red, red, the only thing we see is red and silhouettes. It’s horrible, but it could be worse. We could still be trapped against that godforsaken table.

Footsteps. Our adrenaline glands overreact, pumping our bloodstream with adrenaline before we register what’s happening. We whip around to see.. nothing. We begin to run, the end of the hallway becoming clear. A red exit sign is the only source of light and we gravitate towards it like a moth. We count our steps, running in a rhythm, one-two-one-two we’re nearly there. BANGBANGBANG the footsteps sound like they’re catching up to us hurry up hurry up! 

Bursting through the door, we keep running. We’re in a field and don’t try to look back. The field is still tinted red, though, so we suppose we aren’t out of it yet. Our lungs scream at us to slow down, take a breath, you can’t keep doing this but we ignore them, our broken soul begs us to lie down and just think for a moment but we can’t stop, there are still footsteps behind us and they sound metallic, organised, terrifying

“COME BACK AIDELI” we aren’t coming back “PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE” no no no no “LISTEN TO MY ORDERS AIDELI” no i’m not going back you can’t make me “I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD I CAN TAKE YOU OUT” no don’t take me back there don’t hurt me again

My legs stop working. I turn around, ascending above fear into absolute abject terror. Something’s approaching. It’s a nightmarish version of Her.. Her hair, usually calm cloudlike puffs, has evolved into pale blue daggers, almost metallic. Her teeth are razor-sharp and the length of my arm. Her body is twisted and deformed, like someone took a model of her and melted it in an oven. Any friendly appearance she managed to keep is completely ruined. She is no longer a she. She’s a monster, a demon, a nightmare.

She approaches me agonisingly slowly. “Don’t leave me alone.” I can’t reply. She goes to touch my face  _ nononononononodonttouchmegetawayhelpplease _

_ the void hears your plea _

Her eyes widen as black tendrils of Void emerge from the darkness and seize her by her limbs. A horrible screech fills my ears as she’s torn limb from limb, awful metallic-smelling blood drenching us as it spurts out from her torso, bones crack and crunch. Discordant screams disappear into the void as the Void swallows her in small bites. Her head is the last to go, melting back to its normal cloudlike state. A silent ‘o’ of horror rests on her lips and we look her in the eyes as we hear the awful crunch of her skull being crushed.

The red and the grey of the void smash out of existence and normal colour returns to the world. She’s gone. I’m free. I stagger backwards. 

_ WE _ turn and sprint in the opposite direction. We’re crying, shaking, replaying the scene in our head. A few metres away we collapse into a ball, screaming noiselessly in the grass.  _ we have to get away come on move we need to go come on come on you useless piece of _

We pitifully drag ourself along the ground, staining our hospital scrubs with green, still crying, totally exhausted. We look up and wipe our eyes and observe the blurry landscape before us. A way away from us, we see a cave in the side of the mountain next to us. We crawl helplessly towards it, hiccoughing and crying.

Hours pass. Or seconds. We can’t tell.

We move slowly.

The sun hurts our eyes.

We can’t muster up enough energy to fight ourself.

Everything is too much.

We reach the cave.

We sleep.


End file.
